Maps to Arkham: Lovecraft, Landscape and Visual Poetry

Kemp, Sam (2023) Maps to Arkham: Lovecraft, Landscape and Visual Poetry. Writing in Practice. ISSN 2058-5535

Abstract

The horror writer H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is an enduring figure in contemporary genre writing and his legacy continues to shape the field of weird fiction. But he is a controversial character and, on a line by line level, a poor writer, and responding to his work prompts multiple challenges for the contemporary creative writer. My collection, Maps to Arkham, seeks to understand and disrupt this legendary figure through a series of visual poems which respond to Lovecraft’s attitudes towards language, walking and the landscape. This essay examines the artistic process of détournement, as theorized by the avant-garde Situationist group, and other visual poet’s approach to the concept, and contextualizes my own digital appropriation of Lovecraft’s fiction. This approach provides a framework by which experimental poetry can write through a historical figure, both confronting and parodying them, and poses questions for the role of design software in visual poetry.

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